Let's try again tomorrow
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: (AU) With contrasting actions, words, and feelings, Mustang desperately chases after people out of his reach…


**Fandom: Full Metal Alchemist / Hagaren no Renkinjutsushi**  
**Title: Let's try again tomorrow**  
**Pairing: Roy x ?**  
**Rating: PG-13**  
**Description - (AU) With contrasting actions, words, and feelings, Mustang desperately chases after people out of his reach…**

**Disclaimer - Full Metal Alchemist / Hagaren no Renkinjutsushi isn't mine.**

"What are you doing here?"

I opened and closed my clenched gloves. Even though I was burning with fury in between my eyes, I knew better. Maybe he knew also.

My calm voice may have been scary to other people because I was truly scolding them, but I had said too much. I gave myself away.

I didn't resent you at all.

More than anything, I was filled with a feeling of unpleasant anxiousness that made my heart turn instantly cold in fearfulness…

With an imperious tone, my voice went down an octave to demand,

"Were you planning to run away from me?"

For a moment, his head slowly turned towards my direction. His eyes were blank as he closed them to shake his head at me with a solemn, yet angelic smile.

**Let's try again tomorrow.  
By miyamoto yui**

"Why would I ever want to leave you?"  
Opening his eyes once more, he politely turned away from me and looked back down at the plot of land in front of him.

In all the time I've known him, I was always following him closely from the back. I seemed to be attracted to watching him from behind like an avid spectator holding my breath for the honorable, yet promising display before me.

Yet, as the dark clouds rumbled above us, everything around us was soundless while we stood there with a profound understanding of one another. This understanding had its limits though. It only went as far as our bodies because we couldn't ever penetrate each other's minds no matter how hard we tried.

Even with all the soft and rough hair pulling on the white bed or the violent, seemingly public episodes of lust-filled cries in between alleyways, there was only so much the body could do to comfort the mind. If at all.

I wanted to extend my white gloved hands towards his black clothing, but my pride wouldn't allow me to attempt such a fallible gesture. Besides, what would it prove?

Especially now…  
What could it ever prove now?

My eyes pointed towards the blackening sky. The sun had suddenly been blocked out by the imploring rainclouds with the tears that were soon to come out in floods. While holding my breath, I moved my head to look straight at his back again.

The darkness was making him disappear because he integrated himself into it with his black clothing. I wished that I could also, but the blueness of my uniform hurt the colorlessness of our surroundings. The clouds were sucking away all the sparkling, natural paint of the world.

Well, everything except the white roses he held in his arms.

The stems extended beyond his slender arms with the five buds sticking out on the other side of him. He pointed his head downwards and squatted down.  
With his lips, he pulled out the petals one by one.

I took a step forward, but his eyes darted towards mine and I dared not push any further.

With a soft and caring expression coming back into his eyes once more, he resumed to take the petals away poetically as he had done before. The white petals flew in every direction possible as the wind carried things among all our unsaid wishes.

It began to sprinkle.

Perfectly, as if it were all timed, he turned around to me and sighed. His smile sorrowfully lamented what his lips refused to say in words. Through it all, I could see his hope and disappointment.

Finally, he spoke.  
"I've been trying for eight years. And it's still nothing."

There he was standing in front of me with his arms filled with deep scratches and embedded marks from the thorns of the roses. His lips bled at the sides as if he were a vampire who had just drunk its share of life-giving blood.  
His eyes were taunting me with their paradoxical carnality and purity.

"You can't give up. We can't. Or else we'll never find him."

The golden-haired boy of eighteen stepped over to me. One by one, the scattering petals were shot down by the rainwater pounding on them as if they were targets of predetermined, aimed bullets.

He grasped onto my sleeves as the rain ran down our bodies and washed away the little warmth we kept alive inside of us.

"Where is he? His name is on that tombstone but there's no body! And I can't find him!" His fingers let go of my uniform and he began to pound on my chest as I put my arms around him. "Tell me anything, Mustang-san!"

My own name sliced cleanly into me like a knife.

He still refused to let me come any closer to him. The way he called my name like that proved that to be so.

I was more than upset.

For him. For the other one I adored also.  
For myself.

I unwrapped my arms from his shaking body and pushed him to the ground. He looked up at me with worry.

"Is this what we'll keep on doing over and over? When we separate, we won't get away. And we come back to this?" he asked as I took off my gloves and pulled on the zipper of his pants. "Is this all we ever do?"

He tried to hold my hands back, but his confusion showed as he instinctively leaned up to take my lips. The way he tasted, it was as if he were helping me to take off his clothing.

"No, not…" He began to say when I took my mouth away from his. His hands didn't know where to push and protest.  
He gasped as he barely shouted, "…here!"

My head went in between his legs and I drank him as he grabbed onto the earth around him.  
Then, like a blind man, he patted the area around him until his hands placed themselves onto my knotty hair.

Like a fish out of water, his words came out in tired, yearning gasps. "Not here…please not here…"

Not on this pretend grave…

What else was I supposed to do? What else could we do to take away the hurt?  
You always looked at me with those piercing eyes of yours.

You look like him when you defy me. It makes me want you even more.  
He looked like you when he acted so naïve about some things pertaining to humans and their humanity.

I couldn't press your 'memories' onto this body.  
No matter how many reports and stories I told you, the eclipse of your two selves wouldn't ever come together.  
Just like me…

Even until now, neither of you were here with me. You were so into one another and though I groped onto both of you for the light through the darkness that had enveloped me since Ishbal, I still couldn't push through.

So, once more, my body and my words do not match how I feel inside.

I'm sorry.

For going after you…  
For taking you home with me and forcing you to live with me…  
For letting you go around this godforsaken land in search of answers that may never come to the surface…  
For always getting impatient and going after you,  
over and over…

I know you're not him.  
I know he's not you…

There are so many things for you to hate me for.

For, if it weren't for me, both of you would be together.  
Both of you would be here with me and with one another…

I kissed the crook of his neck as the rain splattered onto our half-opened clothing. With my aching flesh, I got up and I took a deep breath. From my pocket, I took the tainted sign of my sins: The State Alchemist watch.

With all my burdened and heavy heart, I threw it as far as I could.

No matter what I did, I could never do anything right. I couldn't ever erase my sins or have them forgiven.

And in that moment, he got up. Putting his zipper up as he ran, he slipped to the ground with his shirt flailing about. He got up again and I stood in place as he ran after the watch I wanted so much to get rid of.

He fell to his knees and picked it up as if it were a cherished child. He stood up and walked towards me with his hand out. The chain hung and swung in time to his steps.

I blinked my eyes in pure shock.

"Alphonse…"

His steps became faster. Then, like the sweet person he had always been, he truly smiled at me. He jumped into my arms and held onto me with his lips pressing against my shoulder.

For the first time since we had played with our minds thinking we had made progress within our hearts, he grabbed me tighter.

"If you give up, we'll have nothing left, Roy-san…"

To hear him say my name like that cleansed much of the things I held in my dirty heart for so long.  
In that moment, I began to realize the reason why my eyes began to look at his so clearly. I began to understand why Edward always fought so hard for him.

I began to see when we shifted our attention from the body that wasn't here to the hearts that were left behind to cope.  
And still continued to hope.

We'll all play this game of hide-and-seek until we see one another again.

I closed my eyes because I didn't want him to see me crying. But he could tell the warmth against the coldness of the clouds' water.  
It paralleled the transparency of our inner disorientation, for our answers may never be found with the questions growing as fast as the life of a rosebush. In a sense, we were still children no matter how old we were or how far advanced our deep thoughts appeared to be and how much we planned things out.

Now, I knew why he had answered the way he did. "Why would I ever want to leave you?"

I held him closer to me.

Even if you hated me, I didn't want you to ever go away. But you were always compassionate and loving that way, never thinking like adults did when they forgot the various ways and kinds of dreaming.

All this time, I was so scared of you running away, Al…  
…because I didn't want to lose something precious all over again…

Walking away from the tombstone, he kept his head firmly on my shoulder while holding onto the watch in his hands. I quietly, but protectively said with an unknown, reassuring confidence,

"Let's try again tomorrow, Al."

**Owari.**

**Author's note:** Again, this is one of those pieces that popped out of nowhere. I don't know where it came from and nor did I know where it would go. However, I wanted to focus on detail and on a single event. I do not know why, but I thought the scattering of petals would be pretty.

I really liked making this fic. It's messed up, but that's the way I like it.

Take care until next read!

Love,  
Yui

February 16, 2005, 2:31 AM


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